This past weekend, YoKid held a teacher training at Capitol Hill Yoga. I was among five other very inspiring women who all shared a love of children and teaching a yoga. I felt honored to be amongst this group because, as some of you know, I’ve only recently begun teaching children’s yoga. The group was led by Kate, a YoKid teacher with a very impressive resume of teaching and helping youth. Michelle was there too, unborn baby #3 in tow, looking radiant as usual. Although she wasn’t feeling well, she managed to compliment Kate’s teaching style very well with her knowledge and feedback. I was thrilled that there was a small group for this training because it really gave everyone the opportunity to practice teaching, to share their experiences and to learn from each other.
Although I’ve already learned a bunch from teaching the past few weeks, the other participants and I were there to expand our “tool boxes”, as Michelle pointed out. There is always something to learn and new ways to approach a kid’s yoga class, so one can never learn too much. I also realized that knowing very little hadn’t made much difference in the classes I’ve taught over the weeks. Children’s yoga is very intuitive and natural.
What I also took away from the training was that each teacher is unique and there is not one “right way” to teach a yoga class to children. Instead, gauging the needs and expectations of the group, incorporating as much creativity and imagination as possible, and having an open mind are three of the key tools necessary for this job. Each day, class, teacher, and child are different, thus using yoga to express all of those differences is what is so fascinating about this practice. Each participant uses yoga to express themselves in their life every day and it was evident to me that those women were also sharing that expression with the children they are reaching. It was an inspiring day with Yokid, to say the least!
